High Wind — Manistee, Michigan

2025-03-15 · Manistee, Michigan

Event narrative

Trained spotter reported a trailer filled with items blew across a parking lot, dragging the front stand and footplate over blacktop before being dragged an additional 75ft into a drainage ravine with front stand trenching through the ground. Spotter also reported trees and powerlines down elsewhere in Manistee county.

Wider weather episode

An unseasonably strong low pressure system developed as it crosses the Upper Midwest through the day on the 15th, resulting in an area of widespread strong winds crossing the Upper Great Lakes. This system also carried with it large amounts of smoke from wildfires and dust from recent dust storms over the central and southwestern US that had lofted significant amounts of dust into the atmosphere, resulting in an unusually hazy day for mid March with reduced visibility at the surface, as well as dirty rain -- raindrops that had formed around dust particles, fell, and once evaporated, left behind a layer of dust on surfaces. Temperatures again reached into the 60s and 70s across parts of the area ahead of the cold front.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1272591. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.